Templates
Naming templates allow you to create a consistent structure for organizing your files with MusicBee. Some contexts in which MB uses templates for organization include: *The auto-organize function, if turned on in Library Preferences *The Move/Copy to Organized Folder commands *When syncing your portable devices See How to create a file-naming template that best suits you for some specific tips. Templates, without the folder structure piece, are also used for Virtual Tags and in a variety of places where track info is displayed, including the Now Playing Panel, the Modern Compact Player, and the Player itself. Templates for your Library The file organiser enables files to be organised in folders and named by applying tag values to a naming template you specify. Select from the list to retrieve a previously used file naming template. For example, you might use one template for Classical music and another for the rest of your collection. The current file naming template is automatically added to the presets after files have been organised with it. Tick when you want to move your music files to a new folder location. The location you enter serves as the new root folder for the music files, and the file naming template is relative to this location ie. any folders specified in the file naming template are created as sub-folders of this location. If this option is unticked, the current folder of each file is treated as the root location ie. if no sub-folder heirachy is specified in the file naming template then the file will not be moved from its current folder. If unticked, files will be moved to the new folder but the file name will be unchanged. When ticked, the template you enter defines how files will be named. The template is constructed from tag fields and characters, where each tag field is surrounded by <> eg. . Click the button to open the tag selector popup which allows you to choose from all the valid tag names. The template can include a folder heirachy using the \ character as the folder separator. You can also specify the first character of a field using :1 eg. :1 will return the first character of the artist name. You can see what the new file location and name of each file in the file list and optionally untick specific files to exclude them from re-organisation. You will be alerted to any duplicate filenames that would result from the naming template you use - you will be required to override the filename of the affected files or alternatively change the naming template so no duplicate arises. When ticked MusicBee will not organise files that are missing any of the tags specified in the naming template. If unticked, MusicBee will replace missing tags with the value 'Unknown XXX' where XXX is the tag name. When ticked MusicBee will automatically add the organised files to the music library. When ticked MusicBee will delete any empty folder resulting from all its files being moved to another location. When ticked MusicBee will automatically minimise this window and run as a background task. Double click on the status bar to re-open this window. When using the file organiser to define and automatically organise your library (see Preferences > Library), the following restrictions apply: the file must reside on the same drive as the music library root folder. If it doesnt, it will be excluded from the re-organisation. Invalid Character Mapping Click to enter the replacement characters to be used when a tag value contains any character that cannot be used in a filename. By default all invalid characters are replaced with a space.